Campaign saves Platt Fields from development

Health chiefs wanted to pour concrete over green space in Manchester's Platt Fields Park to create a 416-space park-and-ride for hospital staff. They also submitted plans for a second car park, for 191 vehicles, in Whitworth Park.

Both projects have been scrapped after provoking fury among local residents and environmental campaigners.

It is understood that council leader Richard Leese - who branded the plans "appalling" and said he found out about them only after the Manchester Evening News story - stepped in to demand a re-think.

The M.E.N. revealed last week how the Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals NHS Trust had applied for a "temporary" car park on Platt Fields Park during work on a new £350m super-hospital.

The trust - which controls Manchester Royal Infirmary, St Mary's, the Royal Eye Hospital, Booth Hall and three other hospitals - said it needed the facility for staff who were displaced by the building work.

The car park would have provided them with a park-and-ride service from Rusholme to their hospitals. After two years it would have been passed back to the council, whose parks department admitted they wanted to keep it their permanently.

A second application, for a car park in Whitworth Park, would have involved cutting down more than a dozen trees.

The M.E.N was flooded with messages of complaint and residents organised local protests and began signing petitions in their hundreds.

A trust spokeswoman confirmed: "After consideration we have decided to withdraw our planning application for a temporary park-and-ride facility at Platt Fields.

"The trust recognises the strength of local feeling for Platt Fields to remain as it is and wishes to respect the desires of the local community. The trust is exploring a number of options to provide adequate car parking facilities during the new hospital's development."

The spokeswoman confirmed the Whitworth Park application had also been withdrawn.

Paul Shannon, Lib Dem councillor for Rusholme and a leading campaigner against the Platt Fields Park car park, said: "We welcome this u-turn. These plans show the council cannot be trusted to protect green spaces."

Coun Leese said: "It was a bad idea and there should have been public consultation before the planning applications went in."